The God We Serve

Well, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians chapter 3 for our time of study and the word, this morning, we're going to take a break from Romans chapter 8, and we'll be looking this morning at Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20 and 21. And if you want to give a title to our meditation, this morning, it would be the God we serve. The God we serve.

Indeed this is the beginning of our ministry year and one of the things I've been thinking about is like imagining from this day to this Sunday next year and the massive volume of ministry that will take place over the next 12 months. There will be much ministry rendered. There will be babies cared for and diapers changed in the nursery. There will be children taught the word of God and lessons prepared by those teaching and instructing.

There will be many prayers prayed. There will be children trained in the word through the Ina program and in the youth ministry. There will be much discipleship that takes place in the home. There will be retreats that are held and instruments that are played and rehearsals that are done and voices will be raised and dials will be turned.

And worship will be offered to God on many occasions. Men will be gathered around the Word of God, looking into God's word together. Women will be gathered around the Word and other venues and discussing what they are observing in God's word and sharing those insights with one another. Women will be discipling other women.

Men will be discipling and mentoring other men. Fathers will be leading their families in And the worship of God, reading the scriptures to their, their families, people in this church and our services will be greeted. Bulletins will be passed out. Offering bags will be distributed and gathered.

Money will be counted and deposited in the bank. Floors will be mopped, tables will be set, food will be served, and food will be devoured. Clean up will be done, trash will be taken out, counseling will be done, sins will be confronted, sins will be confessed, people will be helped, souls will be saved, lives will be changed. Outreaches will be held, care groups will be assembling, discussions will take place in those care groups, communion will be served week after week.

Homes will be opened up. Mistakes will be made, tears will be shed. Forgiveness will be sought, forgiveness will be given. There will be joys and sorrows over the course of this next year of ministry.

There will be thrills and spills. There will be discouragements encountered and weariness experienced and frustrations that develop, and along the way there will be much encouragement to find. And all of this ministry that has rendered the massive volume of the ministry over the next 12 months will all be rendered ultimately to God. We need perspective at the beginning of the ministry year.

You think about all that will be done and the vastness of the need, the greatness of the need. The opposition spiritually, the spiritual forces of wickedness that are lined up against us, the fact that all that we do, if, if God doesn't show up, it's for naught, and that we can minister and we can teach and preach the word and read the word of God and minister to others, but we can't change the human heart. In and of ourselves we need perspective. And so my my thought as a pastor is where do we go on this Sunday wherein we launch this ministry year where the needs are so great, the stakes are so high.

And the ministries that will be rendered are so, so vast. Well, where we're going to start the ministry year is in Ephesians 3:20 to 21. And here's how we're going to get perspective. We're just going to stare at God.

We're going to gaze. At him this morning. That's all that we're going to do with the time that we have in the word this morning. Before we get into the text, let me motivate you a little bit.

Why do we want to stare at God and gaze at Him and behold Him? Just some quick reasons because it's the key to doing impossible things. When people are looking to and at God, they catch themselves doing humanly impossible things. When they turn away from God, they begin to do only things that normal human beings can do.

When Peter was walking on the water, that's just something you don't see every day, but he was able to do that while he was Staring at Jesus, but when he turned his eyes off of Jesus and began to look at the waves around him, and to become preoccupied with the storm around him, he began to sink. But as long as his eyes were on Jesus, he was doing the impossible. Another reason why we do well to gaze at God on a morning like this is because gazing at God makes us radiant. I love that word.

How many of you want to be radiant? OK, 5 of you, great. I've noticed radiant is like you hear that word a lot people selling cosmetics and, put this on, this will make you radiant, this will make your hair radiant. That's a word that you see often.

We got some skin lotion at our house that on the back when you read the label, it says that one of the things it has is a radiance enhancer. Radiance enhancer and so of course we want to use that because we want to be radiant. I, I put that on this morning and I don't. I want to be radiant.

We all want to be radiant, and here's how you can be radiant. Just stare at God. Psalm 34 5. The psalmist says those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.

Imagine gazing at God and ministering with this God-given radiance. Another reason to live your life and to minister for others gazing at God is that it changes you. You are changed by what you see, as John Piper says, beholding is a way of becoming. Behold.

Holding is a way of becoming as we behold God and Paul, you think about this in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and 4, he's talking about his ministry. And in the context of ministry, he says, as we behold, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit. We're ministering to others, ministering the gospel to others, and we ourselves are beholding. The glory of the Lord, and we're being transformed.

The greatest gift that any of us can give to our children or to anyone that we minister to is a transforming self. People are hungry for something that is real and has power to change, and we can experience change from one level of glory to another over a period of time by simply beholding God with an open heart. Speaking of change, it changes us, but an aspect of that is that gazing at God enlarges us. It expands our minds and our souls.

Charles Spurgeon. said this, He who often thinks of God will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the soul, the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the deity. So we want our minds expanded, our souls enlarged.

We want to be transformed. We want to be radiant. We want to do impossible things, and we will find these things happening as we gaze at God. And one passage where we can do that is Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20 and 21.

There's many others, but we'll focus on this this morning. and the way we're going to frame things today is we're going to observe 6 truths about the God that we are blessed to serve. Let me read these two verses. Paul says, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to him, be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.

Amen. 6 truths about God that we observe in these two verses. Truth number 1 is this God we serve is a God who can do beyond all that we ask or think. He is a God who can do beyond all that we ask or think.

Paul says in verse 20 now to him who is at the present time, and this could be translated now to him who at the present time has the power, or is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. This is how he describes God. And Paul is piling on the superlatives here and straining the limits of human language to convey the grandiose power of God. Paul says here that God is able to do all that we ask, all the things we would ask in prayer.

God has the power to do. That we ask, but Paul doesn't stop there. He says he can do all that we ask or imagine or think, even those things that we don't even think to ask for. We don't dare ask for.

God can do not only all that we actually ask Him to do, but he has the power to do all that we could even imagine. And not only does Paul say that God can do all that we ask or think, but he says God can do beyond all that we ask or think, and not just beyond all that we ask or think, but abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, and not just abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, but far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. This is the power of our God. This is the power of the God that we serve.

That's good to know, is it not? It's good to know that we have a God with this power. you, you think about, the story in all four of the gospel accounts, the story of the feeding of the 5000, 5000 men, which would then also, you would add to that, the women and children, let's say a crowd of 10,000 people. perhaps, and they were hungry and needed to be fed, so the need, the vastness of the need was, was there, and a lad comes forward with 5 loaves and 2 fish.

And I don't even know when I think about it, would I, if I had 5 loaves and 2 fish, would I have even brought that forward to Jesus? I, I would have been tempted to not bring it forward, not because I would have wanted to be selfish and have it just for me, but I would have thought, what is this given the vastness of the need? I would have almost been embarrassed to bring such a small contribution. To so great of a need, but this lad brings 5 loaves and 2 fish, and Jesus looks at it and looks at the need and says, this is perfect, perfect.

And he prays over the bread and over the fish, and he blesses it. begins to distribute the bread and the fish. And get this. I'm sure when the lad gave it to Jesus, the lad was probably doing the math saying, what, this might take care of about 15 people, but it won't even be able to fill up the 15 people.

But at least 15 people can get something to eat. But by the time all is said and done, what we learn in the gospel accounts is that everybody had something to eat. That's way beyond anything that this lad would have asked or thought or imagined. And not only did everyone have something to eat, but the text tells us that everyone was full.

Everyone was satisfied. And there's a big difference between having something to eat and being full, right? Those of you with children, the difference between just having something to eat and being full. and And then even beyond that, not only did everyone have something to eat, and not only was everyone full, but there were 12 baskets left over.

Why is this? Because Jesus is one who delights to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, even with a little contribution. That we might bring that's very encouraging for us. We see this about our God throughout Scripture.

We see God uses David to kill Goliath. We see that God uses Gideon's army of 300 people in order to bring down. And defeat far greater armies than an army of 300 people. God uses the small.

He uses the insignificant in order to accomplish great things. And like with Gideon's army, he seemed to intentionally whittle down that army so that it would be evident to everybody that when victories are won, everyone would know it's not Gideon's army, but it's God who did that. And so this is why our focus needs to be on God rather than like on ourselves or on our giftedness. You might look at your giftedness and say, Man, I don't really have much to contribute, and I see other people, they've got so many more gifts.

That I have. I'll just let them minister. What can I contribute? Listen, you're not factoring in a God who can do much with little.

Bring your contribution to God and ask Him to bless it. And God will surprise you as he seeks to do far more abundantly beyond all that you would have ever asked or imagined. And in fact, God may have intentionally whittled down your giftedness to where it just seems so small to you so that you can bring that forward and he can do great things with it. Now think about what Paul is saying here in Ephesians 3:20.

Now to him who is able at the present time to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, the question is why would Paul make this statement at this point of the book of Ephesians? Why would Paul at this point of Ephesians make this statement about God fully expecting that the Ephesians would have no trouble believing what he's saying here? The answer to that question would be this, because Paul has spent the last 3 chapters of Ephesians chronicling how God has already, in fact, done in the gospel exceedingly abundantly beyond anything we could have ever asked or imagined.

From chapter 1 through chapter 2 to chapter 3, Paul has been laying it out, all the things that God has done.

And all the blessings he's given to us in Christ, what Paul is revealing is God has already just blown past any expectations that any of us would have ever had. He has blown so far past anything that we would have ever even thought to ask God for. I would encourage you to go through Ephesians 12 and 3, make a list of all the things that God has given to us in Christ, and then imagine would anyone have ever asked for these things. Imagine this prayer.

Father, we have sinned and deserve your wrath forever. Could you send the 2nd member of the Trinity to come to Earth and take on human flesh? And could you have him live the life we failed to live? And could you put our sin on him and have him die the death that we deserve to die?

And could you raise him from the dead? And could you ascend him to your right hand with full authority to do as he pleases? And for all of us who believe in Him, could you forgive us and declare us not guilty of every sin we ever have or will commit throughout our lifetime? And could you withhold from us the judgment and the wrath that we deserve for our sins?

And could you credit all of Christ's perfect righteousness to us? And could you adopt us as your sons and daughters? And could you put us in Christ so that all the love that you lavish on Christ falls upon us? And could you seat us with Christ in the heavenly places right next to you at your right hand?

And could you give us your Holy Spirit and have Him live inside of us? And the power that you exercise when you raise Christ from the dead. Can you have that power flowing in a constant stream toward us and into us? And one last thing, Lord, can, can we live in heaven forever and enjoy your hospitality for the full length of eternity?

Would anyone have ever thought to pray that prayer? In fact, no one would have, and there are things that God has done for us, described in Ephesians 12 and 3. That beforehand, if we did not know that, we would have felt it presumptuous to ask for it, if not even blasphemous, to ask for the things that God has done. It is clear from Ephesians 12 and 3 that God did not look at the human race and listen to their prayers and say, OK, I will do exactly that.

No, God just does infinitely more than anything that we would have asked. Or even imagined. And so Paul comes to the end of chronicling all of that. And he says, now, all of this is designed to tell you something about God.

Why did God construct the gospel in this way? Because God was wanting to reveal to us something about Himself. He wants us to know something about him. He wants us to look at the gospel and all that he's given to us, far more than we would have ever asked or imagined, and then reason from that back to God and come to some firm conclusions about God.

And that is that God today at the present time, that's the tense here, today and tomorrow and the next day, stands ready and able to continue to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. God wants us to look at all he's given to us in Christ and be blown away by Him. fascinated by him and have confidence in him as we face another day and another year of ministry. The truth is, guys, the gospel is the hardest thing to believe.

If you believe the gospel, then it's easy to believe that you have a God who today is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that you could ask or imagine. There's another truth that we learned about God. As we behold him in these verses, and that is that not only is he able to do beyond all that we ask or think, but number 2, he is a God who chooses to demonstrate his power and to do these great things through imperfect people. He is a God who chooses to demonstrate his power through imperfect people.

Look what he says in verse 20. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works where? Within us, in us. That's, that's amazing to me.

This is, this second truth is perhaps more compelling even than the first, because it's not like God is like, hey, you guys stand over there in the corner and I'm going to be over here and watch me display my power. That's not how it works. God wants to do and is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, inside of us that is in operation that he has put an operation inside of us. Us, that works within us.

Well, we know us, right? we, we have so far to go before we reach spiritual maturity. We still see so much sin that remains, and we can say with James in James 3, we all stumble in many ways. We can say with Paul in Romans 7, the good that we want to do, a lot of times we don't do and the evil we hate, a lot of times we find ourselves doing that and we look at our lives on many occasions and what we see is a whole bunch of mess, and we have so far to go before we reach spiritual maturity.

And yet we're being told here that there is A power that works within us, and it's according to that power that works within us that God wants to do. And has the power to do things exceedingly abundantly beyond anything that we could ever ask or imagine. I want to take this opportunity to thank you as a congregation. You're such a blessing to Pastor.

I want to thank you as a congregation for not waiting until you reach perfection before you decide to be involved in ministry. Thank you for not waiting until you've arrived before you say, I think I'm ready now to give myself to ministry to other people. God is using you now. We're so blessed at Cornerstone, and this is the grace of God.

one of our staff members some time ago went through our church directory and looked at everyone in the Cornerstone family and tried to identify what ministries they're involved in, and about 80% Of the people who are a part of the Cornerstone family are involved in ministry in some significant way. In some organizations, 20% are doing 80% of the work, and we're not finding that at Cornerstone by the grace of God. And here's the amazing thing, so many of our of our church family are involved in ministry in significant and meaningful ways, and not a one of them, not a one of us has reached perfection yet.

I want to remind you of something that we learned.

several months ago back in Ephesians chapter 4, where we're actually encouraged along this very line. Christ ascends to heaven, He gives gifts to, to men and to the church, apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers, and he does that for the equipping of the saints so that the saints that you can do the work of ministry. you here at Cornerstone, you are the staff. You are the ministers.

You are engaging in ministry, and our job is to equip you to do the work of the ministry. And then look at what Paul says, you do, we all do the work of ministry until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge. the Son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. We minister, we do the work of ministry until we reach perfect unity, perfect faith, perfect knowledge, and perfect fullness.

He doesn't say you do the work of the ministry after you reach these things, but you minister until. And, if, if your mentality is, man, I just, I have so far to go. I have so many immaturities in my life, and I just don't think that right now, there's so much brokenness in my life, I don't think right now I can be involved in the lives of other people and minister blessing to them in any way. Maybe after I'm going to wait until I reach perfect unity, perfect faith, perfect knowledge, perfect fullness, and then once I reach that, then I will minister.

I have two responses. If that's your thinking, number one, you're never going to reach maturity in any of these ways without being involved in ministry to the lives of other people. The ministering to other people is a part of the path to your own maturity. A second response is that even if theoretically you could reach perfect unity, perfect faith, perfect knowledge, and perfect fullness, let's say theoretically, you could do that.

And then you wake up one morning and you look at yourself and you're like, wow, I am, I've arrived perfect unity, faith, knowledge and fullness. And then you come to God and say, I'm ready to be used now, Lord. God will respond by saying, actually, it's too late. I'm bringing you home to heaven.

And you'd be like, What? I'm now ready to be used. And God said, No, I told you to do the work of ministry until you reached. This maturity And so thank you for being involved in ministry.

We have so much to learn and so far to go, each one of us, but, but God is doing amazing things and he's using us way out of proportion to who we are in and of ourselves, and it's according to the power that is working in us. God delights to show His power and show His glory through imperfect people. There's a 3rd truth that we observe about God. In verse 20, and that is that he is a God who intends to glorify Himself in the church.

He is a God who intends to glorify Himself in the church. Paul says to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church. The church is the ultimate location. Among human affairs, it is the ultimate institution, the ultimate location where God intends to glorify.

Himself. Paul is writing these words and expressing this sentiment, so we know Paul felt this way, but he's under the control of the Holy Spirit of God as he's speaking these words. So this is an explosion of sentiment from the Spirit of God himself. And reading this verse, we're pressing our ear up against the inner councils of the Trinity.

The heartbeat of the Spirit of God is that God be glorified in the church. The church, according to the New Testament is a happening place, and we're not just talking about the universal church, but the, the local manifestations of the universal church, local churches where there's elders and deacons and men and women and responsibilities and, and, and leadership and commitments to one another. God wants to be glorified in the church. In Ephesians, Paul describes the church as the bride of Christ, as the temple of God, as the body of Christ, and as the fullness of, of God.

The church and the local manifestations of the universal church are at the center of what God is doing in human history right now. Eric Alexander, a pastor, was speaking. A few years ago at the 350th anniversary of the Westminster Confession of Faith, he was speaking in Westminster Abbey in London, and he began to speak about God's purposes and where the locus is of God's energy and what God is doing in the world today and listen to what he says. He says, what is the really important thing that is happening in the world and our generation?

What are the really significant events taking place? What is the most important thing? Where do you need to look in the modern world to see the most significant event from a divine perspective? Where is the focus of God's activity in history?

Here's his answer. The most significant thing happening in history is the calling, redeeming and perfecting of the people of God. God is building the Church of Jesus Christ, and the rest of history is simply a stage God erects for that purpose. All other human institutions are going to come and go, but the church will stand and exist forever.

What is done in the church may not make headlines. In the world's newspapers and news websites, I doubt very seriously that this year something we do in our ministry here at Cornerstone will make a headline on the Drudge Report. It may happen, that'd be great. But, but it probably won't, won't happen.

It may not make the headlines of the press enterprise. But I'm telling you, the headlines are screaming in heaven. God's eyes are upon what is happening inside the local church. This is the focus and when everything else burns and is destroyed, it's the church and what God has done in the church that will last forever.

The church is indeed at the center of what God is doing in human history right now, and you say, Well, Pastor Milton, of course you would say that you're a pastor of a local church. Actually, you got it backwards. I am a pastor of a local church because I believe that. My parents, I grew up in a home where my parents love the local church.

We grew up with this awareness that sometime before we were born, our parents made a decision. They made one decision. And that is that they would be a part of a local church wherever they are. They would be committed and be a vibrant part of any local church wherever the Lord led us.

And we were always a part of a local church, and some of the churches were a mess, literally. And there were splits. One split that occurred. Sometimes there was ugliness.

But my parents were committed to the local church, and they raised us to love the local church to where when us 4 children reached an age where we're trying to figure out what do I want to do with my life, what, what we all decided basically is we want to give our life to serving God's purposes in the local church. And that's not to say that everyone needs to choose to be a pastor, but what it is to say is that whatever you choose to do, you need to have an eye towards whatever God leads me to do, whatever career, whatever occupation, I want to be a blessing to the church.

This is the bride of Christ. If I love Jesus, I will love his bride.

If I love Jesus, if I want to be like Jesus, I will love what Jesus loves, and He loves his church and will love His church forever, and I want to serve the purposes of the local church and the universal church. And even when I'm in the workplace, I am representing. I am an extension of my local church in the workplace where I find myself. So if you're not a part, a vital committed part of a local church, then consider the teaching of scripture in First Timothy 3:15, Paul says to Timothy, I write these things so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of faith, which is the church of the living God.

and that's what First Timothy is all about. He's telling us how to conduct ourselves in the local church with elders, deacons, men and women, and responsibilities and commitments to one another and, and duties and caring for each other. that's what the book is all about. But if you read nothing else in 1 Timothy and all you read was in 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15, You would read this and go, apparently from what Paul says here, I ought to be conducting myself in a local church.

I don't know how to conduct myself yet in the local church, but I ought to find a local church and begin to conduct myself in that local church, and I will read the rest of First Timothy and the rest of the New Testament to find out how to go about conducting myself in the local church. You say, I don't know about that. I'm. A lot of the churches I've experienced and seen.

are a mess. The church is full of a bunch of messed up people. And my response is, oh, and you're not? Seriously, I, the arrogance baffles me sometimes.

A church is full of a bunch of hypocrites. Do what you're saying? I'm not a hypocrite. I'm real.

I'm honest. It's, it's a backhanded way of bragging on oneself. Of course the church is full of broken people. Do you ever say, I don't go to the hospital.

It's a bunch of sick people there? You would never say that because of course sick people go there. Of course broken people come into the local church because we know that we need a savior. And by being a part of the local church, we get to make a contribution to everyone else's sanctification.

And in addition to that, God uses the local church and the people in the local church and experiences in the local church to further our sanctification as well. To what Joshua Harris says, he says, as we become genuinely involved in the church, we put ourselves in the best possible place to allow God to do His work in us. That's because the church is the best context, God's greenhouse, if you will, for us to flourish spiritually. And what, you don't need a perfect church for a church to be a greenhouse.

In fact, you need an imperfect church. and all the blessings and the gifts and the beauties that you see in your brothers and sisters and in the leadership, God uses that as an instrument of sanctification in your life in the local church, but even the failings and the immaturities and the sins that will wound you and sometimes send you reeling, God uses that to further your sanctification. I'm thinking for our membership class we need to change our presentation where we can say hey, if you become a member of Cornerstone we've got a lot of things that can further your sanctification.

We've got sound teaching of the word gospel centered.

worship and we got men's ministry and women's ministry and youth ministry and a and children's ministry and all of these things can further your sanctification. And in addition to that, if you become a member of Cornerstone, here's a part of the package of what we offer towards your sanctification, and that is our sins and our immaturities and our failures. That will wound you at times. We don't want that to happen, but it happens this sight of glory.

But God even uses that. As a part of his plan to sanctify and to grow you. In some of the worst situations that I observed my parents in in a local church, especially one where there was a split, just watching them and the way that they disciplined their tongue, the way they spoke about the leadership, even though the leadership was not worthy of Of the respect that my parents gave to them, I learned volumes. I learned things watching my parents in imperfect churches that I would have never learned if all we ever did was attended perfect churches.

So even the mess is a part of the genius of this, and you think of Paul. If anyone had a right to be cynical about the church, it was Paul, right? Paul was wounded by brothers and sisters who tried to cause him distress when he was in prison. They would, they would minister out of selfish ambition to arouse envy and discouragement, and Paul, he would pour out himself and literally spend himself for the Corinthians, and they didn't get.

a dime. He had to work during the nights to generate income to address his own needs. And then when Paul would get up and speak to the Corinthians, they were like, Man, your physical presence is weak and unimpressive, and your speaking is contemptible. Imagine, imagine that.

Paul experienced many wounds at the hands of brothers and sisters in local churches. And yet in Ephesians chapter one, Paul says the church is the body of Christ, and it is the fullness of God. It's the best you're going to get this sight of glory. And if you want to experience the fullness of God, you will experience that fullness in this imperfect institution of the local church that is on its way to glory and to perfection.

When we see each other in glory and we're blown away, like, look at you, you are so amazing looking in your glorified state and, and, and we're just complimenting each other and amazed at what each other looks like. We will be so blessed that we got to be a part of each other's journey on the way to that glory. There's a 4th truth that we observe about God, and we're going to have to move very quickly here, and that is he is a God who intends to glorify Himself in Christ Jesus.

He intends to glorify Himself in Christ Jesus.

He says to him, be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus. This is a reminder to us that in our ministry here at Cornerstone we have to stay focused and centered on Jesus Christ. We have no other message. If you're coming to Cornerstone and you want a different message, we don't have it.

I'm sorry. All we can do is speak Jesus to you, the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Peter in Acts chapter 4 verse 12 says, there's no other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be delivered. And you can put anything after that word delivered.

It is through Jesus. He's the only name God gives to us through which we can experience deliverance from sin, deliverance from sin's power, deliverance from sin's guilt, deliverance from lust, deliverance from pride, deliverance from envy, deliverance from lifetime habits of deeply entrenched sin. Deliverance from anxiety, deliverance from despondency. You want deliverance from those sins that ail you.

There's only one name God gives you. And that's Jesus. And so in our ministries here we need to stay centered on Christ and have a Christ-centered ministry, and what by that is twofold a Christ-centered ministry rather than a worldly wisdom-centered ministry. And also a Christ-centered ministry as opposed to a problem-centered ministry., for example, imagine coming to me saying, Pastor Milton, I, I've just had a problem in my life being self-absorbed.

And self absorption is my besetting sin. And so could you meet with me over the next 12 weeks and can we focus on my self-absorption problem for the next 12 weeks? And so we meet for 12 weeks and I spend all of that time revolving around you and your problem with self absorption or anger or whatever it may be. Is that, is that the solution?

No, that's not a Christ-centered ministry. Part of your solution is for you to begin to orbit around Jesus Christ and his greater purposes of what he is doing. Martin Lloyd Jones talks about how I believe it was in Spain a number of decades ago, the mental hospitals were full of patients who had these psychoses and, and anxieties and things they were obsessed with, and then a civil war broke out in Spain and suddenly everyone had something bigger to worry about, and he said it was amazing the hospitals largely emptied.

Because everyone was given something bigger than themselves to worry about.

And we need something bigger than ourselves to revolve around. And as we revolve around Jesus and the way we do body life and the gospel, there's a, there's a certain genius to that as our problems day by day, week by week, get addressed, and we grow and mature as we revolve around Him, God will glorify Himself in Christ Jesus, and that's where our focus needs to always be. Very quickly, a 5th thing we observe about this God is that He is a God who intends to glorify Himself to every generation.

He says to him, be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, to all generations.

That word generation speaks of that which has been begotten. So when you see this word, you need to think about the fact that there's a generation of people who were begotten by the previous generation. And then they give birth to the next generation who then gives birth to the next generation. And here is Paul 2000 years ago, and he's not fixated on his own decade or on his own generation, but he's looking into the future and however many generations there are into the future, he's already thinking about that.

May God be glorified, not just in this generation, but in every generation. And here at Cornerstone, we, we need to be thinking not just about 2011. We need to be thinking about more than just up through 2020. We need to be thinking about 20 and 30 and 40 years from now.

Yesterday we as elders were meeting and asking questions that we don't know the answers to. And as we talked, it It, it began to come up in the conversation that, what, maybe God is calling us to make some decisions that won't really serve us, but they'll serve the next generation of cornerstone. And the generations to follow, we're not just serving each other, we're serving the generations to come. We need to think multigenerationally.

You read the 10 Commandments, and God says, I'm a God who visits iniquity on the 3rd and 4th generation. You had better think about your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren when you're making decisions in your life about me. More is going on than just what's going to affect you now. And in the church on a positive side of the ledger, we just, we want to live and minister and relate to one another and strategize in a way that not only serves our purposes in this generation but also in the generations to come.

More could be said about this, but let's look at a final truth about God. That we observe here and that is he is a God who intends to glorify Himself forever. And ever To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Paul now ascends beyond the generations, and he's now, into the realms of eternity.

And Paul 2000 years ago was imagined. He's like, May God be glorified now. May he be glorified 100 years from now in Christ and in the church, and may He be glorified in Christ and in the church, in the eons of eternity. And this all ties back to verse 20, guys, get this before we wrap this up.

This God who can do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us today, may this God receive glory in the church and in Christ. Jesus throughout all generations, and forever and ever. Part of what Paul is saying is may God still be getting glory for Himself, 1 trillion eons from now into eternity, for the things that he does in us. Today, according to the power that works in us, Do you realize that the deeds that are done today by us in this era, by us as a part of the Cornerstone family, that these deeds will still be spoken about?

In heaven. a million years from now. We need to see these days in which we live as epic days. This is an epic time period in Cornerstone's history where the decisions we make now and the, the, the ministries that we render to one another will be the stuff of legend in heaven, and God will be getting glory for Himself as these things are spoken of that God was able to do in and through us for the glory of Jesus Christ.

If you consider yourself a part of the Cornerstone family, I encourage you, as you leave this morning, go out. and visit the ministry tables and And look for ways that you can get involved and, and use your gifts, your burdens, your passions to be a blessing to, to us here. And, and also we're here to serve you. So look for ministries that would have something to offer that could be a blessing to you.

But as you walk out the doors this morning, behold your inheritance in Christ. It's all yours. As a child of God and make full use of what God has given to you in Christ. Let's bow our heads in prayer.

God, I look out in this congregation into the faces of so many people who, knowing, knowing something of their stories, I, I know the brokenness that continues, the wounds, the unresolved issues. The long distance that they would say they have to go before they arrive at maturity. And yet even though that's true, there's a power that works inside of them, and they're, they're being governed by that power, and they're like, well, sometimes I'm confused and I don't feel like I have much to offer, but I, I just want to be used by God, and they're doing things large and small.

And being used by you to make everyone's life richer.

Thank you God for these people. What a precious people and what a precious privilege is mine to be one of the pastors here. Lord, may no one think that the deeds must be large. In heaven, everything gets turned upside down.

The small is large, and the least is the greatest. The unseen is seen. And so, however small, An arm around the shoulder. A weeping with someone who's weeping, a word fitly spoken, a meal taken over.

To another Changing a diaper in the nursery, tending to children in the nursery so that parents can be in the service. These, these are great deeds. That make headlines in heaven. So may we be ennobled by an awareness of the magnitude of everything we do.

And how great it is. In your eyes. Lord, we thank you for the privilege of giving of our offerings to you. Receive these funds and do much with them and receive us as we give ourselves to you and do much with us in the coming year.

We ask these things in Christ's name. And all God's people said,